Follow the crazy adventures of an Alabama cyclist taking on the Race Across America in 2015.

Day 5 – Crossroads Classic – Salisbury Circuit Race

Race Summary
15th place (9th in field sprint). This placing was enough for me to take 11th overall for the 5 day omnium. My hopes for a top 5 were dashed after a poor road race yesterday. And today, I just missed making it into the top 10 by 3 points. Still, this was a really strong field up here in North Carolina, and I was happy to have some strong races even if the results weren’t quite there.

The video below shows the field sprint for 6th place. (Caution – loud awesome cheering at the beginning) I was pretty far back still at the point that Kristine took this video, but the sprint was uphill, and I passed a bunch of people in the last 100 meters to finish 9th in the field sprint, 15th in the race.

The Details
The laps for today’s race were just under 1 mile long. The key feature was the finishing climb. I started out pretty well and fought hard to stay towards the front. I ended up bridging up to a good looking break with about 14 laps to go. The break was a bit too big, though, and our gap shrank from 20 seconds to 8 seconds in just one lap. I think we ended up staying away for maybe 4 or 5 laps total. Chris Harkey (Hincapie Green) and one of his teammates slipped away as a counter attack with a Mountain Khakis rider. The three riders quickly built a lead as nobody chased for an entire lap (I think this was with 5 laps to go in the race). There were two more riders that slipped away with 2 laps to go. I waited for the field sprint and ended up 9th in the field sprint, 15th for the race.

Here is the Strava segment data … I’ve included the 28 laps plus the finishing climb for the last lap … also, here is the link for the interactive strava data: http://app.strava.com/rides/1152324